vygramul:Had he simply released stuff that concerned him, I could have written it off as misguided at worst.Dumping 250k documents without knowing the contents thereof is not exposing shady shiat. It'sshowing depraved indifference.

Agreed. On the one hand, fark the Global Corporate Elite and their lackeys in government butyou can't really call it "whistle blowing" when the guy had no idea what data he was releasing.

RangerTaylor:r1niceboy: freak7: make me some tea: Damn. I can't even crack a joke about that.

I can, screw the traitor.

It's always good to see a citizen showing the proper levels of due deference, unquestioning loyalty, and the prescribed levels of bitterness. Well done, sir, you rank highly on our lists. And believe me, we observe a great many citizens when checking our lists for compliance.

In his defense, Manning is quite literally a traitor. Military personnel who release classified data and put people at risk are, by definition, traitors or spies, take your pick.

I agree he's committed espionage, but not with a mind towards harming US interests. He was certainly reckless, but doesn't deserve the casual hatred he's receiving. He should be punished, and his sentence is just. None of that takes away from the fact the US has a massive culture of secrecy that in many cases is entirely based on agencies wielding power. That the FBI can hand a letter to a person saying that we can take any information on any person, and if you even ask a lawyer whether this is legal, you can be prosecuted, is near the bottom of the slippery slope towards a police state. That is horrifying, and any American (or Brit, for that matter) talking about their freedom is completely deluded to think they have any. You can vote for this politician or that one, both of whom roll over for the NSA, the CIA, the DoD, or FBI on command. There's a reason J. Edgar Hoover stayed in his position for so long. He had more power than any of the politicians that thought they could knock him down a peg, and he used that power. as a result the culture of secrecy, and power, and spying domestically, became an industry. Now people think the real freedom in this country is whether or not they can buy a gun. The real freedom of standing up for what you believe, and being able to act on that peacefully, has long gone. We have undercover officers infiltrating peace movements, civil rights advocates and leaders gunned down, and people still believe they live in a free society because you are free to buy a car with heated seats.

George Carlin was right about the illusion of freedom and the illusion of choice. You don't have any.

Voiceofreason01:mbillips:Again, can somebody cite a single specific example of what was supposedly wrong about the classification of the documents Manning released?

You mean like classifying a video of a US helicopter firing on unarmed reporters?

You mean the video of a US helicopter firing on a group of 8-9 men, some armed? After a call for fire from ground troops who'd been fired on from that direction? My understanding is that the video wasn't released immediately because it was evidence used in an investigation of the journalist's deaths, which resulted in these reports.

There's no doubt that DoD and other agencies often slow-roll FOIA requests, particularly during the Bush administration, and that they overclassify things. But that video shows an almost archetypical example of collateral civilian casualties. Civilians are intermingled with armed combatants DURING combat. They're not identifiable as journalists (no PRESS markings on their cars or clothing). Sucks to be them, but you really can't expect anything else to happen in that situation.

Releasing that video wasn't whistle-blowing. It was just ignorant, dickish, recklessness. It provoked an emotional response without shedding any new light on the case.

Carth:MadMattressMack: He wanted to be a martyr for whatever reason and committed the first part when he released hundreds of thousands of classified documents without knowing what they contained. Now he has the second part. Good for him. If he thought this would have any other outcome he was seriously delusional.

This is what happens when you give young idealistic kids a security clearance. They think if they just expose the truth people will rise up and overthrow the oppression and they'll be hailed as heroes!

I joined the Army when I was 18 without a good ideological reason (kicked out of the house for irresponsibly partying all the time and just wanted security to have a house and income) and would have never considered doing something like this. If you didn't have the ideals in your head they drill it into you.

Though I do blame his command as well for not pulling him when it became obvious he was unfit. Plus they put you through psych evaluations and that should've picked up on this. From the documents I've briefly looked at and footage I've seen it seems some back door government normal BS to get the upper hand and grey area engagements. I don't see command ordering the targeting civilians for indiscriminate killing or genocide.

There's some bad and damaging stuff in the released documents, but the military's a broad sword designed for fighting other broad swords. It's not a scalpel. There are some scalpel teams, but they're not numerous enough to be effective theater wide, which is what the broad sword is designed for. Because of that there will be mistakes. It's not pretty but it's how the job gets done. And we're far better at limiting collateral damage than most, if not all, millitaries. We worry about how our guys are going to live with themselves when they get back.

In basic one of the things they went over was not doing something you're not supposed to do. That it is OK, and your duty, to refuse an order to do things like kill civilians. Our troops aren't mindless killing machines (well, maybe the USMC) but have a conscious as well. Though I don't think Manning got this and it seems he thought this was the case. That he thought command was complicit in mass murder and he was going to be some sort of hero, or at least show the world something new, by exposing it. But that wasn't the case. He exposed dark side of the military doing military stuff. That we can't 100% prevent killing innocent people. But that was nothing new and is something that is actively being worked on to minimize. And that knowledge

No matter what his ideals were, short of an overthrow of the government he had to know he was going to get punished severely for this. Security is a big concern in the military for some reason

southpawtn:I bet he gets more time than the guy about to go on trial for murdering 16 civilians in Iraq.

Uncovering war crimes is worse than committing war crimes. "Murrica.

They're gonna give that guy life without parole, if you mean the one who murdered all those people in Afghanistan. He's already pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty. The prosecutors tried to give Stephen Green, the Mahmudiya rapist/murderer the death penalty, but he had been discharged and was tried in civilian court, and the jury wouldn't go for it. All the other soldiers in that case got 90 years or more. So your argument is invalid.

mbillips:Civilians are intermingled with armed combatants DURING combat. They're not identifiable as journalists (no PRESS markings on their cars or clothing). Sucks to be them, but you really can't expect anything else to happen in that situation.

What's the calculation you would use to determine if you would open fire on a suspected militant among civilians? How many Iraqi civilians is a US soldier worth? 10, 15? Do children count as more or less than an adult?

Cubicle Jockey:Lionel Mandrake: I guess Bradley Manning's crimes are almost twice as bad as running a slave-labor industry as Nazi Minister of Armaments.

William Calley served 3.5 years of house arrestfor his conviction of murdering 22 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai..Manning might serve ten times that amount in prison.

I would suggest there was something wrong with Calley and Speer's sentences rather than there being something wrong with Manning's. But, then, I think murdering people deserves more than 3.5 years of house arrest. YMMV.

If enough chemtrailed random internet libertarians say so, it MUST be true.

I didn't know people still believed this.

Anyway, I didn't read that Obama was going to pardon Manning from any Libertarian comments. I read about Obama pardoning Bradley Manning from a comment posted by a Democrat.

Nice try at getting in a jab and Libertarians, tho.

As a Libertarian, I think the blind support many Libertarians give Manning is pretty pathetic.

Snowden had a principled beef over a policy most Americans take issue with, which he made public while not a sworn member of the military.

Manning was upset because of don't ask don't tell(a policy he agreed to when he enlisted) and just blindly slung whatever dirt he had access to for the media dogs to scoop up.

Me too. I lean libertarian, and, believe it or not, a little to the right, and while I feel that some of our policies are less than perfect, to say the least, that does not mitigate betraying a sworn oath and recklessly disseminating confidential documents, i.e., being a traitor.

Cubicle Jockey:mbillips: Civilians are intermingled with armed combatants DURING combat. They're not identifiable as journalists (no PRESS markings on their cars or clothing). Sucks to be them, but you really can't expect anything else to happen in that situation.

What's the calculation you would use to determine if you would open fire on a suspected militant among civilians? How many Iraqi civilians is a US soldier worth? 10, 15? Do children count as more or less than an adult?

I don't know; I'm not a combat soldier. It would depend on the Rules of Engagement. If I incidentally kill 10 civilians to get a guy who is likely to kill hundreds (say, I know that this guy is the lead VBIED expert in a region), then that calculation might be different. In this case, there were no indication of journalists or other innocent civilians being involved in that group, just some guys who didn't seem to be armed. There was an active small arms fight going on, with U.S. troops taking incoming fire. The children who were allegedly killed were inside a building where the armed combatants had taken refuge, again, during an active firefight, and not visible to the helo pilots.

The best way to avoid civilian casualties is to plan your operations to do so. Once you plan an operation that's going to include air support in an densely populated urban area, some civilians are going to die. That's completely unavoidable. I was in Iraq when that incident happened, and it just sort of blended in with the 100 Iraqis who were found EVERY MORNING with their hands bound and a bullet in their heads (Sunnis killed by shiate militia), and the daily car bombs that killed about 50 to 100 people (mostly in shiate neighborhoods). A good buddy of mine, an Iraqi translator, died in one of those car bombings.

My opinion was that we were relying too much on direct combat and other kinetic force, and not enough on soft power, which turned out to be vindicated, as the "Surge" was basically a wholesale purchase of Sunni gunmen with U.S. money to fight Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

mbillips:Calley was sentenced to life in Leavenworth by the Army, but Nixon had him transferred to house arrest and later pardoned him. The morale of the story? Don't vote for Nixon.

vygramul:I would suggest there was something wrong with Calley and Speer's sentences rather than there being something wrong with Manning's. But, then, I think murdering people deserves more than 3.5 years of house arrest. YMMV.

Cubicle Jockey:mbillips: Civilians are intermingled with armed combatants DURING combat. They're not identifiable as journalists (no PRESS markings on their cars or clothing). Sucks to be them, but you really can't expect anything else to happen in that situation.

What's the calculation you would use to determine if you would open fire on a suspected militant among civilians? How many Iraqi civilians is a US soldier worth? 10, 15? Do children count as more or less than an adult?

Given the cost of investment (school/medical/social programs) and earning potential of the average American on top of their specialized training cost investment each one is worth several hundred of any given third world country in terms of both investment spent on them by society that would be lost on death and in terms of potential return to society (taxes, spent income, etc). That's just way it works.

r1niceboy:I agree he's committed espionage, but not with a mind towards harming US interests. He was certainly reckless, but doesn't deserve the casual hatred he's receiving. He should be punished, and his sentence is just. None of that takes away from the fact the US has a massive culture of secrecy that in many cases is entirely based on agencies wielding power. That the FBI can hand a letter to a person saying that we can take any information on any person, and if you even ask a lawyer whether this is legal, you can be prosecuted, is near the bottom of the slippery slope towards a police state. That is horrifying, and any American (or Brit, for that matter) talking about their freedom is completely deluded to think they have any. You can vote for this politician or that one, both of whom roll over for the NSA, the CIA, the DoD, or FBI on command. There's a reason J. Edgar Hoover stayed in his position for so long. He had more power than any of the politicians that thought they could knock him down a peg, and he used that power. as a result the culture of secrecy, and power, and spying domestically, became an industry. Now people think the real freedom in this country is whether or not they can buy a gun. The real freedom of standing up for what you believe, and being able to act on that peacefully, has long gone. We have undercover officers infiltrating peace movements, civil rights advocates and leaders gunned down, and people still believe they live in a free society because you are free to buy a car with heated seats.

George Carlin was right about the illusion of freedom and the illusion of choice. You don't have any.

I do hope that I never actually become that cynical, but I don't disagree with a lot of this either. So far, we still have freedom of the press, although the armor in that is starting to get chinked away as well...

William Calley served 3.5 years of house arrestfor his conviction of murdering 22 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai..Manning might serve ten times that amount in prison.

Calley was sentenced to life in Leavenworth by the Army, but Nixon had him transferred to house arrest and later pardoned him. The morale of the story? Don't vote for Nixon.

No wonder Republicans are so worried Obama will pardon Manning. That's what they would do.

I hope he does, just before leaving office. Three and a half years on top of time-served is good for me.

What deluded fantasy land are you living in? Obama is probably the worst anti-whistleblower president in the history of the US. He's probably sad that he couldn't personally execute Manning, the last thing he's going to do is pardon Manning

Cubicle Jockey:mbillips: Calley was sentenced to life in Leavenworth by the Army, but Nixon had him transferred to house arrest and later pardoned him. The morale of the story? Don't vote for Nixon.

vygramul: I would suggest there was something wrong with Calley and Speer's sentences rather than there being something wrong with Manning's. But, then, I think murdering people deserves more than 3.5 years of house arrest. YMMV.

I agree. So why do you believe Nixon pardoned him?

It was part of Nixon's campaign against the anti-war movement. Calley had a LOT of defenders in America, including Jimmy Carter. Even some people who were anti-establishment thought Calley had been made a scapegoat for policies created well above his rank. Speer's sentence was quite severe for the times; these ridiculously long sentences that you see in the U.S. are a product of generations of politicians winning votes by being tuff on crime.

a) We're through the Looking Glass here, people.b) Off with his head!c) Eat me.

Unlike a true traitor or a leaker, he had a misplaced faith in the US military and government. I sign up for (c). Anybody who accepts the designation "traitor" will automatically select (b).

Please explain how an active duty servicemember with a security clearance deliberately releasing classified material in contravention of stated orders is not treason. As soon as you can do that, we'll move forward. Well-intentioned or not (I personally think he was throwing a tantrum more than anything) that is still treason.

William Calley served 3.5 years of house arrestfor his conviction of murdering 22 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai..Manning might serve ten times that amount in prison.

Calley was sentenced to life in Leavenworth by the Army, but Nixon had him transferred to house arrest and later pardoned him. The morale of the story? Don't vote for Nixon.

No wonder Republicans are so worried Obama will pardon Manning. That's what they would do.

I hope he does, just before leaving office. Three and a half years on top of time-served is good for me.

What deluded fantasy land are you living in? Obama is probably the worst anti-whistleblower president in the history of the US. He's probably sad that he couldn't personally execute Manning, the last thing he's going to do is pardon Manning

mbillips:Yeah, because if you're standing next to a guy holding a rifle or RPG, the people who want to kill that guy should just call "Time Out! Journalists on the battlefield! No fighting today!"

Which might work if you also hadn't been bombing and strafing the allied nations that go in with you. Only imperial stormtroopers are so precise. As far back as 2005, only two years after the invasion, a dozen journalists had been killed and even CNN was asking if this was deliberate.

(Won't post links to blood spattered camera gear as people are just coming back from lunch.)

a) We're through the Looking Glass here, people.b) Off with his head!c) Eat me.

Unlike a true traitor or a leaker, he had a misplaced faith in the US military and government. I sign up for (c). Anybody who accepts the designation "traitor" will automatically select (b).

Please explain how an active duty servicemember with a security clearance deliberately releasing classified material in contravention of stated orders is not treason. As soon as you can do that, we'll move forward. Well-intentioned or not (I personally think he was throwing a tantrum more than anything) that is still treason.

Disobedience to orders isn't treason. You have to betray the country to the enemy for that, and the judge threw out that charge. Manning's argument was that he was releasing secrets to EVERYONE, and that the enemy got them only incidentally. Treason, btw, isn't an offense under the UCMJ; it's mentioned under the Espionage article, but it's not a named offense. Manning was found guilty of espionage and disobeying orders, but it's a matter of opinion whether what he did constitutes treason.